[Tlhingan-hol] vulqa'nganpu'

[lojmIt tI'wI' nuv 'utlh]

All these examples still use {‘e’} to refer to separate sentences. The only stretch is that they refer to sentences someone ELSE has uttered. None of it allows {‘e’} to refer to an earlier clause in the same sentence that contains it. Next we’ll allow it to refer to dependent clauses within the same sentence. We can stretch it all over the place, but that doesn’t make us right to do so.

There’s a sentence. It has been uttered. It is complete. Maybe I said it. Maybe someone else said it. Now, I tag onto it with {‘e’} in a separate second sentence. That’s not the same thing as using a conjunction AND {‘e’} to link to, and refer to a sentence. {‘e’} refers to a grammatically unlinked sentence.

lojmIt tI’wI’ nuv ‘utlh
Door Repair Guy, Retired Honorably



> On Dec 31, 2015, at 9:54 AM, SuStel <sustel at trimboli.name> wrote:
> 
> On 12/31/2015 12:51 AM, Rohan Fenwick wrote:
>> ghItlhpu' lojmIt tI'wI' nuv, jatlh:
>> > In English, we sometimes start a sentence with "But", but so far
>> > as we know, in Klingon, "but" is always a conjunction combining
>> > two sentences to form one longer sentence, and in Klingon you
>> > can't have a Sentence As Object construction with {'e'} referring
>> > back to a conjoined sentence.
>> 
>> The way you phrase this last part implies a certainty about this
>> prohibition that I'm pretty sure we don't have.
>> 
>> taH:
>> > The {'e'} refers to the preceding sentence, not the first half of the
>> > current sentence.
>> 
>> Because syntactically {'e'} is identified as a pronoun in TKD (sections
>> 5.1, 6.2.5), I don't see why there's any reason it can't reach across
>> the "conjunction gap", if you like, to make reference to something in
>> the previous clause (which is itself also formally a sentence; see TKD
>> 6.2.5, where it says that the conjoined parts must be well-formed
>> sentences). We know that other pronouns are quite capable of reaching
>> across a conjunction for their anaphoric reference:
>> 
>> pa' ghomta' SuvwI' 'ej pa' loS chaH
>> "the warriors had assembled there and they [the warriors] were waiting
>> there" (paq'batlh: paq'raD 14.3)
>> 
>> so since {'e'} is also said to be a pronoun, I wouldn't say that there's
>> any formal reason why it couldn't do the same thing, simply taking the
>> entire sentence as the basis for its anaphora rather than one of its
>> arguments:
>> 
>> pa' ghomta' SuvwI' 'ej 'e' vIlegh
>> "the warriors had assembled there and I saw that [the warriors had
>> assembled there]"
>> 
>> Just because two sentences are joined with a conjunction to make one
>> larger sentence doesn't mean that the two conjoined clauses are not
>> themselves also sentences.
> 
> I tend to agree, because I think {'e'} can probably be used in ways other than the strict formula we get in TKD. I am thinking particularly of {'e' neHbe' vavoy} "that's not what my father wanted (daddy didn't want that)" from Star Trek VI. In violation of the rule that {neH} doesn't use {'e'}, Azetbur uses {'e'} to refer to an entire speech that OTHERS have just given.
> 
> And let's not forget that many of us like to quip {net Sov} to something SOMEONE ELSE has just said. Where does that come from, if not a willingness to stretch the definition of the sentence-as-object construction?
> 
> -- 
> SuStel
> http://trimboli.name <http://trimboli.name/>
> 
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